Where IM, e-mail, and social networks meet

Digsby should easily be the instant messaging freeware of choice for the super social set. In addition to supporting the major IM networks--Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber--Digsby also pulls in Web mail feeds, as well as access to MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook accounts. Updating Twitter is a breeze from the application's main interface, though users wishing to do anything more than read Facebook and MySpace news feeds will be redirected to their online accounts.

Users can initiate text, video, and audio chat from the conversation window, and transfer files, send SMS, and compose e-mail. Digsby supports not only Web mail, but POP and IMAP accounts, too. The notification pop-ups for every activity can get distracting, though a deep preference options control nearly every aspect of the display, including a wide variety of skins and those pesky pop-ups. Digsby is off to a strong start, and the most recent version does an amazing job of fixing stability and resource-hogging problems.

Although many people had written off the app as too cumbersome in the past, the current build is well-worth downloading and exploring.

Senior writer Seth Rosenblatt covers Google and security for CNET News, with occasional forays into tech and pop culture. Formerly a CNET Reviews senior editor for software, he has written about nearly every category of software and app available.